#56 - CHECK!

Number 56 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to attend the wedding of my friend, Ashley to her sweet hubby, Brad.  Ashley and I have been friends since middle school when we were members of the same youth group.  A fun side note, our youth pastor, Bo Brown, was the one that married her and Brad.  It was so nice to be around him again along with several members of our youth group that we stay in contact with!

Anyway, Brad used to work with me at my firm.  I am proud to say that I hooked them up!  While at the reception, lots of people commented on that but I said the same thing each time.  I really think it was more God using me, than my own matchmaking skills.  See, Brad and I were on the same softball team for our firm.  He was our team coach.  During one game, I was sitting on the bench waiting to go up to bat and the thought penetrated my brain and for some reason I felt a HUGE urge to set Brad up with Ashley.  I called Ashley immediately and told her of my plans.  They both looked at each other’s facebook pages to determine if a first date was even worth it and they both liked what they saw.  So they reluctantly had their first date at Workplay Theater. 

Fast forward a couple of years and here they are now:

Such a beautiful couple.

Here’s a few more pictures of the day:

Before the dresses went on.

Something blue to say “I Do”!

Her reception shoes.  Ash wore white and we all wore black!

Matron of Honor, Allyson, doing touchups on her hair.

The look of nervousness when walking out the door to see Brad for the first time!

This is Wendy and Allyson doing the hair of the flower girl, Addy Kate, who happens to be Allyson’s daughter.

 

Isn’t she GORGEOUS!?!?!

Ashley and Wendy

Me and Ash.  You may notice how friggin skinny she is!  Girlfriend did the Paleo diet (and I’m not talking one of those easier versions of Paleo…she did the 100% full Paleo diet) a few months before the wedding.  She almost didn’t fit into her dress she’s lost so much weight!

Ash and T (Cristina is her full name, but all of her friends call her T)

The view at the ceremony

My friend Carina!

First dance as husband and wife.

Me and my hubby

Carina and Yarbrough are still planning their wedding which will be held in Las Vegas next May.

Gorgeous cake!

Cutting the cake.

Their ride to the hotel that night.

This isn’t the best picture.  I was trying not to use my flash so that her photographers would have the best picture.

More members of our church youth group.  Justin Mayfield is on the left (and he happens to be one of my neighbors) and to the right is Adam Madinger who is also Allyson’s hubby and Addy Kate’s daddy.

This is our “Georgian” picture.  All four of us use to live together in an apartment complex called “The Georgian” in Tuscaloosa. 

Showing off the comfy reception shoes :)

We had so much fun the whole weekend and I couldn’t be happier for my friend.  The ceremony was absolutely amazing and I had lots of tears for sure.  I’ve never felt an urging from God as strong as I did that day at the ball field and now I know why.  These two were destined to be together and I am so blessed that I was a tool God used to bring them together.  I love you guys!  Have fun in Mexico!!!

NYC - Again

A couple of weekends ago, my sister Jennifer and I decided to head to NYC for some quality Christmas time since she isn’t going to be with our family for Christmas.  She flew in from Tampa and I flew in from Birmingham.  We stayed at the Hilton in Times Square which is where Justin and I stayed when we went for our first wedding anniversary.  Times like this make me glad Justin travels as much as he does.  He used skymiles for my flight (and I had first class on the way back - woo hoo!) and hotel points for our hotel.  So traveling to the city cost us nothing :)

Different story once we got there though.  Here’s something you may not know about me.  I am not a shopper.  I hate malls.  I hate shopping.  Hate it.  I wear clothes that I’ve had for years and years.  It doesn’t really bother me at all.  I probably go on two big shopping sprees a year, one for summer and one for winter.  Well, the winter shopping spree occurred in NYC :)  I’ve been to New York so many times I can’t remember, but I have never shopped there.  Ever.  So Jen and I did a lot of shopping.  Here’s some other things we went to see:

 

Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.  We actually ate lunch at an eatery on the NYU campus which was pretty cool.

This is us waiting on a subway.  The subways are up and running from Sandy now.  There was one train that was out of commission still, but the rest managed to get up and running again.

Wollman Rink.  When I came to NYC with my mom several years ago (we actually went the exact same weekend that Jen and I went - weekend after Thanksgiving) I went ice skating but my mom didn’t.  She said her bones were too fragile :)  This time though, Jen and I just watched the kids skate.

The Plaza Hotel.  It’s across from FAO Schwartz, which we ended up standing in line for a brief period of time to be able to enter.  I bought a New York ornament because as many times as I’ve been, I’ve never purchased an ornament to go on our “travel tree” as we like to call it.  I also got Carter a puzzle board as a gift from Santa.

This was at the 9/11 memorial where the freedom towers are still under construction.  I was so excited about seeing the waterfall monuments where the North and South tower used to stand. 

These are the names of all the people who were killed in 9/11.  Both waterfalls have names engraved around them.

Freedom Towers

The Rockefeller tree.  I’m not gonna lie.  As soon as I saw this tree I told Jennifer “she ain’t real pretty!”.  And she’s not.  But it’s for good reason.  This tree went through Sandy and made it out ok, so I would expect she took a pretty bad beating.

Radio City!  We wanted to see the Rockettes, but chose to see a Broadway play instead.  Chicago :)

This is us in Times Square

The view from our hotel was of the Carter Hotel.  Made me miss my baby :(  This was also around the time Justin called to tell me that Carter was finally saying “mama”.  I may have wanted to leave right then to go home :)

It was a great trip even though it was a quick two day trip.  It was a nice weekend of downtime before the busyness of Christmas.  Last weekend I was in one of my best friends wedding (will blog about that later), this weekend is Carter’s first birthday party (tear), next weekend is our Sunday School Christmas party at our house (it’s on the 21st, 12-21-12, so naturally we’ve nicknamed it the “end of the world party”) and finally, the next week is Christmas and Carter’s actual first birthday!  Busy busy busy!!

#33 and #34 - CHECK!

These are big ones y’all….for me at least.  And for any other momma out there I’m sure.  Number 33 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to watch Carter walk for the first time.  When I wrote this list, Carter was maybe 8 weeks old and I wasn’t really thinking about the difference between “walking” and “taking first steps”.  It will obviously take practice for Carter to perfect his walking skills, but what I meant when I wrote that as number 33, was that I wanted to see Carter take those very first steps.  And he did that on his 11 month birthday!  I wrote his 11 month post that morning and after work I went to my mother-in-law’s house to pick him up as usual.  We went back home and played all over the house like we normally do.  We were in the “man room” that really is no longer a man room, but I digress.  Carter was standing up holding onto the ottoman to a chair in there and there was another chair behind him.  Usually he will come down to his booty and just crawl there if the destination is too far away.  This time, he turned around and took 2 steps towards the other chair and never fell or wobbled in the process!  I was SO excited!!! 

The next day he went to my in-laws house again while I was at work (Justin was working out of town during all this).  When I went to pick him up, my MIL said that he had taken about 3 or 4 steps towards things during the day.  So when I went home with him that night, I was determined to practice with him.  Carter is a huge fan of positive reinforcement.  He LOVES to be cheered on and clapped for when he does something worthy.  So I used that to my advantage.  I put him standing up next to the shelving underneath the television in our living room and I scooted back and put my hands out and was telling him to come to me.  He did it so many times and I was so excited so obviously I cheered him on and when he did it, I would clap for him and say “yaaaaaaaay Carter!”.  Naturally, I had to try to get this on video.  I didn’t want to go pull our the video camera, so I just got my phone and propped it up on the shelving and hit the button on the i-Phone where you can make it use the video camera on the front of the phone so that you can see what you’re recording while you’re recording it.  See for yourself!!!

**Keep in mind, this was a very informal way of recording this.  You can see Carter’s upper body, but not his feet.  But it’s obvious he’s walking towards me on his own.  Also, I keep looking at the camera because I’m trying to make sure that it’s getting him in the view.**

Now on to number 34.  Number 34 on my list was to teach Carter to say “mama”.  If you read Carter’s monthly posts, you know that I have been trying for this SO hard.  He said his first word “dada” when he was about 9 months and a few days old.  Ever since then, I have been trying so hard to get him to say mama and he’s just never said it.   He says plenty of other things but for whatever reason, he’s never felt compelled to say “mama”. 

The day after the above walking occurred, I went to NYC for a short weekend with my sister, Jennifer, that lives in Tampa.  I told Jennifer and Justin that I was so worried he would perfect those walking skills while I was gone and that I worried that I had already seen my baby crawl for the last time and I didn’t even realize it.  While we were there, Justin told me that Carter indeed did something while I was away, but it wasn’t perfecting the walking skills.  Carter was finally saying “mama”.  I was excited, but at the same time so upset because I missed it.  But Justin got a pretty cute video of him saying it while he was eating lunch one day and sent it to me when I was in NYC.   I probably watched it a hundred times or more. 

People keep saying he did it because he missed me.  I know that at his age he doesn’t understand that, but I can’t help but wonder if he said it because he noticed I wasn’t around.  I can’t help but think that the reason he was saying it so much while I was gone is because he knew all along that I was “mama” and realized that I was gone.  I think he was asking Justin where I was.  Melt.My.Heart.

Two dates to go in the books!!!  Wednesday, November 28th (his 11 month birthday) he took his first step and Friday, November 30th he said my name :)